Letters to the Editor: Housing crisis hits health staff hardest

Irish Examiner

4 hours ago

I save lives for a living. Yet right now, I cannot even find a roof for my own family.
I am a GP trainee at Sligo General Hospital.
Like hundreds of doctors every July, I moved posts — this time from Galway to Sligo — and started the desperate search for a place to live.
For months, I applied through agents, scoured listings, and pleaded with landlords. No success.
A friend took me in temporarily while my wife and our five-month-old son stayed behind in Galway. Weekends were spent driving hours just to hold my child.
Eventually, I found a landlord through the hospital's HR. She asked for a €1,200 deposit without allowing a viewing — 'the tenants are still in there'.
Out of fear of being left with nothing, I paid.
This week, I was told the property 'needs repairs' and might not be available for over a month.
But I have already given notice to my current landlord and booked leave to move my family.
Now, we are homeless on paper — and I'm still working 16- to 24-hour hospital shifts.
The NHS in Britain provides temporary housing for its trainee doctors. Why can't the HSE do the same to help its staff?
The housing crisis is hurting everyone, but for frontline staff who keep the health system running, it is now a personal emergency.
Dr Hanzla Aslam
Galway
Shared connection
between cultures
Perhaps this is an appropriate time to reflect on instances of shared connection between the people of India and Ireland. The Irish Famine 1845 was followed a century later by the Bengal Famine of 1943, with cause in both cases attributable to British colonial policy and occupation.
Terence MacSwiney, Lord Mayor of Cork 1920, who died on hunger strike in Brixton Prison, was cited as inspiration by Indian revolutionaries Jawaharal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi, and Bhagat Singh. We may well reflect also on MacSwiney's words: 'Patriotism does not destroy the finer feelings, but rather calls them forth and gives them wider play'.
Sharron Toner
Bandon, Co Cork
Our céad míle fáilte is a mere myth?
President Michael D Higgins has condemned recent attacks on Indian people living in Ireland as a 'stark contradiction' to the values the Irish public hold dear. ( Irish Examiner, August 13)
Unfortunately, it seems that those traditional values of welcome and openness to the stranger have been diminishing and even disappearing to the point that they are being replaced by open hostility and violence against anyone perceived as the 'other' in our society.
It can be argued that our traditional welcome of 'céad míle fáilte' is more of a myth and make-believe to attract tourism rather than being imbedded in our culture. Hostility against the Traveller community was, and remains,
endemic among the settled society.
It is heartbreaking to have to listen to international protection applicants as they describe how they are taunted with racist slurs on our streets and how they fear going out alone in our public areas for fear of being assaulted.
Our streets have become a hostile environment, not alone for our Indian community and asylum seekers, but also for the LGBT+ and other marginalised groups.
This hostility bordering on hatred against the stranger is not confined just to our cities, but it has taken root throughout our country, judging from the burning down of accommodation intended for international protection applicants.
Putting a few extra gardaí might contain the violence for a while, but a more radical approach to this pandemic of hostility to the 'other' is needed.
Brendan Butler
Homefarm Road, Dublin 9
Hate crimes violate nation's values
The abhorrent hate crimes perpetrated against members of the Indian community violate our nation's values of inclusion and equality.
They endanger a community that has given so much to our country through its contributions to health and the economy.
The hate crimes become even more abhorrent when you consider the powerful historical ties between both of our nations, something that has been highlighted
recently by politicians and other
influential figures, and must continue to be propagated to help foster tolerance in those who support xenophobia.
When you read about our histories, you realise that there are potent parallels to be found.
To those Irish people who would defend the ill-treatment of the Indian community, there are questions that I feel they must strongly consider.
Did you know Ireland and India have a shared history of colonialism? Did you know we have a historical longing for self-determination and nationhood? Did you know we have a shared trauma of famine, conflict, and partition within our nations? Did you know that during the famine of the 1840s, wealthy Hindus, Indian princes, and those of lesser financial means in India, donated thousands of pounds collectively to relief efforts for our ancestors?
Wouldn't all of this justify a strong bond between our peoples and not the bigotry manifested in the recent hate crimes? I hope this cancer on our society can be cured, and that the Indian community in Ireland as a whole feels welcomed and respected.
Tadhg Mulvey
Co Meath
Respect for all
I am a 72-year-old Irish citizen of Indian origin and have been living and working in Ireland with my family since 1996.
I have worked as an engineer in various industries in Ireland since 1996. We have always been treated well by the Irish people, but we are appalled by the recent violence against the Indian community in Ireland.
I think that this is because in the 20th century, Ireland was a predominantly whites-only country, but after the economic boom in the late 1990s, it started getting people from other countries and became a multi-cultural and multi-coloured society. Twentieth-century Ireland was like a garden with only white flowers, whereas 21st-century Ireland is like one with multi-coloured flowers.
The challenges facing 21st-century Ireland are diversity and inclusion; respect for all cultures and people regardless of colour, creed, disabilities, or abilities.
I am very touched by the recent letters to the editor sharing the concerns of the Indian people living in Ireland, and am very grateful to them for standing by us.
Arun Mathur
Cork
Teacher unions are simply toothless
The TUI, along with the other teacher unions, hold responsibility for the issues now draining teacher numbers. They have failed abysmally to uphold the integrity of the profession and robustly rooted out any trade union voices calling for basic activism against department decisions over the past 15 years or so.
Membership growth, for obvious reasons, has been the focus, and a financially successful campaign, now bulging to more than 20,000.
However, at what cost? Further education teaching is a mess, with multiple new tutors and instructors doing teacher work, all represented by the same union. ETBs are political powerhouses with zero accountability, which has had caused untold damage to teaching and learning, as well as staff morale.
Only a tiny amount of cases are reaching the WRC, mostly without union support.
Recent conflicting messaging about Leaving Cert reform by TUI, telling members to vote with the department, then posturing contrary to agreed reform once the vote was secured, told many exactly how the union works.
Similarly with the masters programme. Elevating teacher training to costs associated with professions that reward with much higher returns was always going to lose potential applicants. Expenses grew to that of medicine, law, dentistry etc, but without any security of employment once qualified.
Any progress with EDI within the staffroom was totally wiped out as costs and potential earnings have become unachievable for years and years.
It's a bit rich for a toothless union, who have capitulated to the department for a considerable time, to lament the current demise of the profession yet again, when they have been the ones who have utterly failed it.
Trade unions matter hugely, but useless ones are damaging to the workers who fund them.
Una Dunphy
Tramore, Co Waterford